AP Gets Rights To Commercial Use of NFL Stills

Filed at 10:19 a.m. EST on Apr. 22, 2009

The AP has struck a deal to be the exclusive agent for commercial use of NFL still images.

AP has already had the right to use its NFL images for editorial purposes, but can now sell them for commercial re-use as well as licensing the NFL's own event photos-the NFL draft, for example.

The deal also covers historic images in the AP NFL archive.

"This agreement creates a powerful offensive line, anchored by the AP's great photography and photo licensing expertise and the NFL's terrific library of pre-season, regular season and post-season photographs," said AP President Tom Curley in announcing the deal.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.